Karyn Wellhousen

Eliciting and Examining Young Children's Storytelling

Abstract The ability to orally tell a story is a necessary prerequisite to later success in reading and writing. It has been found that the quality of childrens oral stories is dependent on the task used to elicit stories. This study uses three language eliciting situations to obtain stories. Kindergarten students were asked to (a) tell an original story with no prop, (b) tell a story from a single picture with implied action, and (c) draw a picture and tell a story. The stories were compared in the areas of fluency, vocabulary, descriptive nature, and story structure. A repeated analysis of variance was used to determine significant differences between tasks. Results showed that childrens oral stories elicited with no prop were more fluent and reflected a more sophisticated story structure than the other two tasks. A discussion of findings and implications for educational practice are offered.